Peter King Believes Peyton Manning Should Live In No-Huddleville

When last we left ideological fanny pack, Peter King, he was suggesting that Wisconsin suspend its season opener so Russell Wilson can play a pointless preseason game on its campus. PK also relayed an interested nugget about a scab refs screw-up but he couldn’t say what game it happened in, but it did happen, which was helpful. Petey was alarmed by the epidemic of snotty rich Manhattan kids who own smart phones and probably don’t even have the sense to save their best quotes for New York Times reporters.

But what of this week? Were non-semi-milquetoast-esque athletes found to back up PK’s political views? Were you aware Hines Ward is not currently playing football, and instead hanging out at NBC with Peter? THE PETER KING! WEIRD. Did Peter King not wait one full week of the regular season before blaming the Dolphins’ problems on “Hard Knocks” Of course not. You know better. READ ON.

I’ll take you through the stories of an eventful Week 1 of the NFL season, but shouldn’t that be singular? As in, “story?”

But of course. MMQB readers ask nothing else of Peter King but to remove the chaff of lesser non-lofty stories and bludgeon them over the head with repetitive gushing about a player that PK has had a coffee-flavored boner for since forever.

Peyton Manning turned the clock back Sunday night, and he got the Super Bowl express rolling in Denver.

Manning Returneth. At 36 and still working to regain his in-the-prime fastball, Manning survived a strange bout of in-game inaction

Gotta hand it to BobbyBigWheel for calling this one last night:

Denver’s 0:36 time of possession in the Third Quarter is going to merit a WEIRD from Peter King, MAYBE.

made every fan in Indianapolis who’d been fine with the Manning-for-Andrew Luck tradeoff think, “My Lord, can we have this guy back?”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hasn’t Peter spent months endlessly droning on about how architect Andrew Luck is uber quasi-Manning-esque and how lucky Indy is to have him and that it’s just so obvious even before the season started that Luck WILL be Offensive Rookie of the Year? Does Peter just assume we’re stupid enough to forget themes he belabors in an instant? Well, if I were as poor a writer/analyst/human being/nugget dumpster as Peter King, I’d probably have nothing but contempt for people who paid attention to me, too. So I guess that works.

The win makes Manning 7-1 lifetime against defenses run by Hall of Fame corner/coordinator Dick LeBeau.

Yet 0-1 in the playoffs, which is so very Pey-Pey.

San Francisco and New England, Super Bowl bound. I kid. Or do I?

I don’t care. Or do I really, really not care?

The regular officials might want to go to Wikipedia and read about Ronald Reagan firing the Air Traffic Controllers 31 years ago. Not saying the NFL’s on the verge of whacking Ed Hochuli and 119 of his officiating peers. Just saying that after 14 of the 16 games of Week 1, the replacement officials have done an adequate job. “We’ve seen nothing that stood out as a glaring mistake,” NFL VP Ray Anderson told me at halftime of the late-afternoon games.

For a squishy liberal, Peter King sure does love some union busting. Deferring solely to the VICE PRESIDENT OF THE NFL as the authority as to whether the scab refs performed adequately during a labor standoff is awesomely negligent reporting, even by PK standards. “NFL DOING GREAT JOB, SAYS NFL EXEC”

Of course, then there was one — the crew in Arizona giving the Seahawks a fourth second-half timeout, instead of three, and the NFL observer on site not straightening out the mess when he had the chance. Bad error. Luckily for the league, the Cardinals hung on to win. Even with that error and game times that dragged, the league’s not likely to give much ground if and when talks with the regular officials resume.

Oh right. There was just the matter of a likely outcome altering blunder on the part of the scab refs. Through divine providence, the NFL was delivered from controversy because the Seahawks couldn’t take advantage of the extra timeout on a potential go-ahead drive. So it totally didn’t happen, unless it did.

The first fair overtime game ever is played in Minnesota.

Previously, all overtime games were decided by rigged juries and loaded die.

Vikes get the ball first, and rookie kicker Blair Walsh kicks a 38-yard field goal. In past regular seasons, that would have been the game. Minnesota 26, Jacksonville 23. But the Jags, because Minnesota hadn’t scored a touchdown on the first possession of OT, got the ball with a chance to score a touchdown and get a walkoff win or a field goal to extend it. But Blaine Gabbert went four-and-out. Ballgame. Equitable ballgame.

Lofty Solomonic ballgame.

Tim Tebow. Meh.

While overtime might now have a format that allows for more teams that lose a coin flip to win a game, rest assured that life is still sufficiently unfair that a amorphous sack of nutmeg and Peroni writes things like “Tim Tebow. Meh.” and makes a half million dollars a year for it.

Unveiling a new section of the column: The Deep End.

I asked Neil Horsnby of ProFootballFocus.com, the site that examines plays by breaking down all 22 players’ roles and performances on every snap, to look at a matchup of the week for me. He’ll provide the breakdown of a specific matchup, or how one player performs in a big game.

“I’ve outsourced all responsibility for being a knowledgeable football guy to this website writer. Neat!”

Zebra Data

The average time of the first 14 games this season is 3 hours 14 minutes, six minutes more than Week 1 2011.

Might have something to do with the new rule about reviewing every turnover.

Average penalties per game in the first 14 games: 13.71. That’s almost one penalty more than the 2011 full-season average.

But only a tenth of a percent higher than the amount of accepted penalties in Week 1 of last year, as penalties tend to spike during the beginning of the season for obvious reasons. That took me two minutes to look up. Now, a replacement writer for Peter King might actually bother to consider relevant stats, thus saving potentially hours for football fans over the course of the year.

This isn’t the first time a team mistakenly got four timeouts in a half; it happened in a Browns-Ravens game in 2009. Still, the league’s very lucky Arizona won this game. Imagine the outcry if Seattle, with the extra long timeout, had cooked up a play that would have been the winning points in the opener.

First, you’d have to imagine an Arizona fan base.

Meanwhile, in our NBC bunker watching the games Sunday, I viewed the proceedings with former league official Jim Daopoulos; NBC has hired him as an officiating consultant. He said the solidarity of the officials will be tested now that they’re missing their average $5,500-per-week paychecks. “The wives are going to start saying, ‘I miss that paycheck,’ ” Daopoulos said.

“Forget the paycheck!” Peter King squealed. “Just wait until they get a load of the iron will and bulging biceps of Roger Goodell. They’ll bust faster than Andrew Luck, who I said previously was great but no more until he does something great.”

Newcomer of the Weekend: Randy Moss caught the Niners’ first touchdown of the season. He played about a third of the snaps, getting good separation from corners when he was in. And he blocked. That’s right. Randy Moss blocked. This could be a ridiculously good pickup for Jim Harbaugh’s offense, particularly if Moss doesn’t have to play too much and can stay healthy for 16 games. Or more.

Ridiculously good addition of a person you hope won’t be playing a lot.

Coaching moment of the week

I like when coaches capture a moment and impart the kind of wisdom fourth-grade teachers can impart

Because most coaches speak to their players like they’re in fourth grade, anyway.

but it sounds so logical and simple that … well, let me throw this story from the Meadowlands at you.

Writing!

Did you see the silly interception Mark Sanchez threw on the first possession of the Jets’ season?

Why, yes. It was tremendous. I made a GIF:

Rolling out on second down at his 47, Sanchez neared the sideline when, for reasons known only to him, hs tried way too hard to make something happen, flipping the ball in Favrian style to tight end Jeff Cumberland.

Holy shit, what did the Land Baron do to get himself compared to Sanchez? Didn’t return PK’s 80 voicemails from last week?

But safety Bryan Scott picked it off, and the Jets’ horrendous offensive summer seemed about to continue into an even worse autumn.

Sanchez looked disgusted with himself when Sparano found him.

“Listen son,” Sparano said, “you didn’t have to do that. You’d made six or seven positive plays in a row to get us there, and if you throw it away, it’s third down and you keep the drive going. It doesn’t have to be you winning the game by yourself. Cut your losses. Let your teammates help.”

“The teammates who hate you and openly deride you to the media.”

By the way, even though, to his rare credit, PK owns up to it later in the column, here’s his laughable prediction for the Jets-Bills game:

“Here come Mario Williams and Mark Anderson to torment Mark Sanchez, and Sanchez has to be wondering what horrible thing he did in some past life to be undergoing the kind of competitive torture that’ll confront him late in this game. “TEE-Bow, TEE-Bow!” The chants will rain down on him if he’s down big in the fourth quarter of this one, and Sanchez will be rooting for 15 road games by the time he walks off the field.”

Fine Fifteen

2. New England (1-0). The rookie cavalry for the D — end Chandler Jones and linebacker Dont’a Hightower — came up big. They’re players.

Look how excited PK is for his favorite team. A shame the secondary still blows goats.

5. Denver (1-0). It’s not a dream. Peyton Manning really was that good, 129.2-rating good, in his first real game in 20 months. Really agree with Tony Dungy: The Broncos waited too long to use the no-huddle. Peyton Manning should live in the no-huddle.

LIVING AT A BREAKNECK PACE!

The Dunge was fucking sickening last night, by the way. And not just because he praised Dan Snyder at one point. The gushing over Peyton was unrelenting. I mean, that was true of everyone at NBC to some extent. But the repeated “YOU GOTTA LET PEYTON BE PEYTON” bullshit from Dungy was way too much. The Broncos ran the no-huddle the majority of the game. It’s not like they were hiding Pey-Pey behind the running game and dump-off passes. Fetushead got to do all the field general porn the media was counting on. I’d rather guzzle razors than listen to the studio show again.

9. New York Jets (1-0). How cool is this: Tim Tebow was in the game on the first play of the season, a second tight end. But we never saw the full monty with Tebow, because as offensive coordinator Tony Sparano said afterward, why empty the ideological saddlebag when you don’t have to? (Actually, “ideological saddlebag” is mine. Don’t you just love it?)

Yes, it’s a shame we didn’t get to see Tim Tebow’s penis, but he doesn’t seem one for the exhibitionism thing.

And, yes, PK, you can totally take credit for that clunky turn of phrase that I will never be tempted to use.

15. Pittsburgh (0-1). Even if Ben Roethlisberger didn’t gift-wrap that pick-6 to Tracy Porter, I didn’t like the Steelers’ chances to go the length of the field in the last couple of minutes to win. But that’s not a disastrous opener for the Steelers.

No, their defense just looks easy to exploit so long as you run the no-huddle and bother to check to see where Troy Polamalu is lined up. Oh, and their offensive line is made of deli paper and my tears.

Roethlisberger played well, and the Steelers got good contributions from the wideouts and from an unknown back named Jonathan Dwyer. Kid runs very hard.

I suppose he’ll have to, since the Steelers are determined to ignore a talented receiving corps in favor of forced ground ‘n’ pound that will limit the opposed offense time to score on the Steelers defense in two plays.

Dr. Z Unsung Man in the Trenches of the Week

In honor of my friend Paul Zimmerman, the long-time Sports Illustrated football writer who has been sidelined since November 2008 after suffering three strokes. Zim still is fighting to come back from the strokes, but can’t write yet, nor can he speak well. A former college and semi-pro offensive lineman, Zim always thought we in the business concentrated too much on the pretty boys and not enough on the men on the lines who did the real hard business of football. Thanks to many of you for suggesting this new category in the column. I’ll use it all season.

An excess of pretty boys and glory boys and not enough maulers. Meanwhile, did you hear how Russell Wilson leads the league in dreamy eyes? SORRY, DR. Z!

Greg Zuerlein, K, St. Louis. New special teams coach John Fassel, son of Jim, was told to go find a kicker before the draft this year, and his choice was a kid who started his career at Nebraska-Omaha and finished it at Missouri Western. The Rams picked Zuerlein in the sixth round, and in his debut Sunday, he repaid the faith. Four of his six kickoffs were touchbacks in Detroit, and he had field goals of 48, 29 and 46 yards without a miss.

Christ. How many fucking coaches’ sons are there on the Rams staff? They have Marty Schottenheimer’s dipshit brood, Gregg Williams’ kid AND Jim Fassel’s kid? Is there not a Dick Jauron child that can be employed?

Coach of the Week

Greg Schiano, head coach, Tampa Bay.

Oh, fuck off.

The Bucs were last in the NFL in points allowed last year, and last against the run. In two games against the Panthers last year, they gave up 86 points. But they’ve bought into Schiano early, and held Carolina to 10 yards rushing and 10 points at the Pirate Ship. One game’s too early to say the rah-rah stuff is going to work in the NFL, but discipline is discipline, and organization is organization. And Kellen Winslow and Brian Price, casualties under Schiano, haven’t landed anywhere, have they?

THE SCHIANO FACTOR IS UNDENIABLY WORLDBEATING, IS IT NOT? HAVE ANY OF HIS PERSONNEL MOVES BACKFIRED OVER A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME? I THINK NOT! DID ANYONE EAT THOSE NOODLES HE DIDN’T WANT? THEY WOULDN’T DARE!

Goat of the Week

Mario Williams, DE, Buffalo. You can excuse a preseason of no production, because no one cares about the preseason.

Except Peter King, who repeatedly chastised Mario Williams for having a lackluster preseason.

But no team had the kind of crisis the Jets had at right tackle in the preseason, dumping starter Wayne Hunter in favor of the untested Austin Howard, and on Sunday, Williams got nothing done playing across from Howard. This much of nothing: one tackle, zero sacks, zero quarterback hits. A pathetic opening display for a man who will make $40 million over the first two years ($1.18 million for his no-show Sunday) of a six-year, $96 million deal.

Mario Williams leads the league in nothing!

Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me

This was the first football weekend in 27 years that Hines Ward has not been either playing a football game, practicing to play a football game, or rehabbing from an injury suffered in a football game.

It’s the first week in 27 years that Hines Ward either has or hasn’t played football. WEIRD.

His last such autumn weekend came in 1985, when young Hines, in fourth grade in Forest Park, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, didn’t play football. Since then, it was three years with the Forest Park Dolphins youth team, one season at Babb Middle School, four seasons at Forest Park High, four seasons at Georgia, and 14 seasons in Pittsburgh.

“Half my life … three quarters of my life. Amazing,” he said Friday, prepping for another day in his new job analyzing the game for NBC. “What’s amazing is how it flew by. I’m a kid, playing, then it seems like I’m in Pittsburgh, just trying to earn a roster spot. And I got so much out of it. No one loved football more than I did. But now, I’ve got this new life, and I’ve got to work hard at it. It’s definitely going to be weird, but it’s OK to hang up the shoes and move on.”

Well, it better be okay because you had nothing left in the tank after last season.

Quote of the Week I

“Oh man, I gotta get out of Cleveland.”

— Eagles quarterback Mike Vick, after throwing four interceptions (it should have been five, but for a drop by a Browns rookie linebacker on the game-winning touchdown drive) at Cleveland Browns Stadium Sunday and barely surviving. Philadelphia beat the Browns 17-16 on a four-yard touchdown pass from Vick to tight end Clay Harbor with 78 seconds left.

Struck that last part out since the proper attribution is “everyone, ever, especially Art Modell”

Stat of the Week

Tennessee running back Chris Johnson’s tweet on March 3: “Statement is I’m gonna lead the league n rushing this year save this.”

Tennessee running back Chris Johnson, at that pace, would have to play 402 games this fall to win the rushing title, if it takes the same number of yards, 1,606, to win the rushing title this year as last year.

Roger Goodell sees a willing spokesman for his proposal for a 402-game regular season.

Mr. Starwood Preferred Member Travel Note of the Week

I beg you, Delta Air Lines and LaGuardia Airport. Please fix the insane asylum that is Terminal C and D, and the Marine Air Terminal, at the airport. For the unfamiliar, here’s how it works if you’ve got a Delta flight at LaGuardia. Delta is at Terminal A (the Marine Air Terminal), Terminal C and Terminal D. When you approach the airport, the Delta Shuttle (flights to Washington and Boston) operate out of Terminal A. The other flights operate out of Terminal C or D.

If you print out your boarding pass a couple hours before your flight and head for the airport, you’ll usually have the gate number on the boarding pass. If not, God help you.

Let’s say you’re not from New York, and you’re just in town, and you have to catch a plane out of LaGuardia on Delta. Cab driver says to you, “Where to?” You say, “LaGuardia. Delta terminal.” Cabbie wonders if that’s the Marine Air Terminal, Terminal C or Terminal D. You don’t have your boarding pass. So you don’t know. You approach the airport, and there should be some signage on site, telling you where your flight is flying out of. Nope. No idea.

And if you guess Terminal D, let’s say, and it’s Terminal C, you get through the rat’s maze of security — it’s always long, because Delta is always busy — and then have to get sardined into a bus downstairs for the ride to Terminal C. Or if it’s the Marine Air Terminal, you’ve got a long ride on a different airport bus.

I mean, anybody at Delta ever hear of signage?

An atypical bitchy travel note from PK in that it’s something that people actually have to a right to be irittated about as opposed to an airport bar employees putting chairs on the table and shutting off the lights while PK was stuffing his face at midnight. Since I don’t travel by plane to New York, I don’t know whether this is just a case of Peter King being too obtuse to recognize an obvious solution, which is more than likely, or an actual shitty situation. In either case, PK tries to traffic in his worries for others who don’t know New York, but really he’s only ranting because it’s inconvenienced him at some point.

Tweet of the Week I

“Tomorrow is one of my favorite days of the year. ‘Overreaction Monday.’ ”

Coincides with Uninspired Sarcasm Monday, it seems. For this week, good thing overreaction Day didn’t fall on a Tuesday.

Tweet of the Week II

“Troy polamalu is the most instinctive safety in the history of the #nfl #pittsburghsteelers”

— @merrilhoge, the ESPN football analyst and former NFL fullback, after Polamalu blitzed in the first quarter at Denver and tackled running back Knowshon Moreno for no gain.

It was so instinctive how he got obliterated and taken out of the play on that long Demaryius Thomas touchdown catch and run.

Tweet of the Week V

“I miss newspapers. It’s weird hitting a dog on the nose with an iPad. @4thandpain”

— @AdamCarriker94, the Washington defensive end.

You’re a good man, Carriker.

It was a messy process of trial and error for Peter King to determine which of his prized Apple products he should use to correct his dog. The Macbook Pro? Too weighty and expensive. The dog passed out sometimes and the volume control on the laptop got wonky. The iPhone just doesn’t pack enough of a wallop. You wanna instill the fear of God in that dog. So iPad is a happy medium.

Requiem For a Heavyweight

Most memorable characters/figures I have covered in 29 years following the NFL, not necessarily in this order (but it’s close):

Bretty isn’t first!? They are having a falling out! It must be because ESPN got the shitty “DURRRR BRETT STILL THINKS HE CAN PLAY” interview for September and not NBC.

Modell, who died in Baltimore Thursday morning, is so many things to so many people: TV pioneer, firer of Paul Brown and Bill Belichick, Browns killer, Ravens founder, hated in Cleveland, beloved in Baltimore, one of the funniest people ever put on the earth, heart of gold to the downtrodden, spender of money he did not have, benefactor who gave away millions that he did have. Unforgettable, in a word.

Uplifter of franchises. Bilker of taxpayers. Cheesiest dick in all the land.

Look, I already had to sit through Bob Costas solemnly defending Modell’s legacy with the NFL during halftime of Sunday Night Football. I don’t have time for another shitty hagiography. So, yeah, gonna pass on this one.

1. I think this is what I liked about Week 1:

b. Chris Berman re-signing, apparently for life, with ESPN, where he belongs. I must be thick. I don’t get all the hatred for the guy. I know his Two-Minute Drills are usually closer to Twenty-Two-Minute Drills, but the way he keeps history — football and otherwise — in his essays … I can’t get enough of that.

Well, of course he can’t. Peter King is just Chris Berman without the sound effects, balding and prescription drug dependency. Berman does have better game with the ladies in leather, though. As for blathering about history, they both get off on reciting things everyone already knows because they love nothing like hearing themselves talk.

d. The confidence of Drew Brees in Jimmy Graham, to throw him a jump-ball between two Washington defenders in the end zone.

Because it takes lofty courage to believe Jimmy Graham can get after a jump ball.

h. Greatness of Adrian Peterson Dept.: He is 27. The Vikings are 52. He is now their all-time leading rusher.

SOMEONE SURPASSED ROBERT SMITH!? THE UNREACHABLE STAR!

k. Alfred Morris. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.

Gonna say the same thing when EvoShield’s stock raises a quarter of a point.

n. Colt McCoy.

The fuck? What does that even mean? You liked the way he sat on the bench? Quiet irrelevance, Colt McCoy has it.

o. Agree or disagree with the men, but you’ve got to applaud Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo for speaking his mind on same-sex marriage, and Vikings punter Chris Kluwe for having a strong opinion, and writing it, in a world of milquetoast athletes.

My kingdom for iPad to smack Peter King with. A world of milquetoast athletes? It’s not tabulating the amount of times that Peter King has spouted off about an athlete voicing their opinion on any number of subjects, be they frivolous or significant. Sure, it’s good that PK is praising athletes defending the rights of same-sex marriage, pretending like two athletes FINALLY HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY just because they espouse a political belief shared by PK is resoundingly shitty.

2. I think this is what I didn’t like about Week 1:

Tim Tebow’s opposition to gay marriage. Meh.

c. My forecast of the Jets: awful. I mean, I thought they’d get wiped by the Bills, and it was the Jets who did the wiping.

When you get Ryan Fitzpatrick on you, you can wipe and wipe, but you won’t feel clean for weeks.

l. Why throw 30 yards downfield, into double coverage, on 4th-and-three, down three in overtime, on what is essentially the last play of the game if it’s incomplete? Why, Blaine Gabbert?

Because he sucks.

m. Mike Adams, an injury replacement at right tackle for Pittsburgh, continues to be a disaster. Allowed a late sack and a half in the last two minutes to Denver.

Mike Adams is almost certainly terrible, but that sack and a half came during desperation time when the Steelers were down two scores and looking for desperation heaves down the field. On the other hand, Adams let Von Miller blow by him without so much as breathing on him, so fuck that guy.

8. I think, after seeing three of the “Hard Knocks” episodes, that there wasn’t much benefit in it for the Dolphins. The very few teams that were on the bubble about doing the NFL mostly-reality show are going to look at the hard knocks the team took in the show and think, “Hey, good TV. But why would we want to risk the embarrassment of seeing ugly cuts like Chad Johnson and David Garrard on TV?”

Ah, a shithead member of the media blaming the Dolphins’ sturggles on Hard Knocks like an asshole. I hate to say I told you so, PK. But I told you so.

RIP Hard Knocks

9. I think you might learn something from the current Forbes magazine story on Jacksonville owner and Illinois auto parts czar Shahid Khan, and not just that his mustache looks good on the cover. From the story, by Brian Solomon: “Khan seeks to expand the fan base — and avoid local TV blackouts — by allowing ticket holders to bring outside food into EverBank Field and tote their toddlers for free … The most audacious part of Khan’s plan: international expansion. The easiest move would be to flee to the greener pastures of Los Angeles. But as with running a Rust Belt manufacturer, Khan seems eager to defy the odds and stay put (he says he is ‘committed to Jacksonville’) … He sees foreign growth potential as a way to do that. Specifically, he wants to make the Jaguars into a global brand, last month securing a ‘home game’ in London each season for four years starting in 2013. ‘One of the good things is they don’t have a team loyalty,’ says Khan, ‘so we get a chance by being the first team presented; hopefully we can get them.’ ”

No better way to build a global brand than with an aggressively apathetic core of fans and seat tarp.

10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:

e. This is what the Red Sox have gotten for the final four years of the six-year Daisuke Matsuzaka contract: 17 wins, a 5.52 ERA, a 1.52 WHIP. For $37 million. Matsuzaka, Lackey, Beckett. Boy, the Red Sox really know pitching.

Not good enough. I hope they got incurable exotic diseases, too.

f. I’ve got a great idea. Let’s pay Zack Greinke $17 million a year.

I hope he spends it all on beer and chicken, you fucking waste.

g. The freebie Red Sox calendar I got last spring extends to January 2013, with a different man each month. Just checked it out the other day. October: Josh Beckett. November: Carl Crawford. December: Clay Buchholz. January: Bobby Valentine. Three out of four ain’t bad. Weirdest thing about Valentine’s radio diatribe is he sounded like a man who is either already unglued or within five minutes of being there. Scary.

h. Be careful, Clay Buchholz. That’s some bad omen.

As much as I want to flay Peter for his usual solipsistic Xerox of Fate retardery, it’d be kind of nice to see something bad befall Clay Buchholz. PK is then forced to call a priest to deal with his haunted freebie Red Sox calendar. The priest says Starbucks is haunted and PK freaks out and it committed to an asylum.

j. Never in the history of rotisserie baseball has a team tanked the way the 2012 Montclair Pedroias have tanked. In two weeks, I’ve gone from second place to sixth — and you know if you play the game how impossible it is to do that this late in the season. I stink so bad I can smell my team through the laptop.

Never in the history of fucks given has this story received a fuck.

l. I saw a photo of Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe Lincoln — he’s playing Honest Abe in a movie that comes out in November — and there’s a very good chance there’s never been an actor who looks so much like a famous subject. Eerie.

WEIRD

n. Coffeenerdness: It’s a rough night when there’s one pot of Italian Roast going at 11:45, then another at 4:15. I may have to take Florio’s advice soon, and give the 5 Hour Energy a try, at least on Sunday nights.

Gotta have enough juice left in the tank to take Floors from behind while he mutters tired jokes about Jimmy Haslam.

o. Beernerdness: I hate to be teetotaling this early in the season, but other than the Allagash White I had before dinner the other night, I don’t have a good beernerdness story for you. Promise to do more research this week and come back with a good new beer next week.

Oh noes! Peter King is forced to actually work during the season and therefore can’t cruise the Total Wines of America for a sixer of goddamn Oberon.

p. Missy Franklin in Denver last night at the midfield coin flip, Michael Phelps in Baltimore tonight. Great ideas by the Broncos and Ravens.

Phelps may actually appear not completely miserable since he won’t be by a swimming pool.

Now onto the two games that will cap a newsy Week 1.

Baltimore 30, Cincinnati 23.

I couldn’t see the Ravens losing this game before the death of Art Modell, and I certainly can’t see it now. It’ll be an emotional stadium Monday night — the same ground where Modell stood 17 years ago this November with city and state officials declaring they were going to build a state-of-the-art stadium for the relocated NFL franchise. And here the Ravens will be, four days after Modell’s death, in their first game, a game that will marry the pomp of football, the national televising of football and football in Baltimore — three things vital to Modell.

So apparently the overpowering urge to win one for a crooked dead guy is enough to propel a three-point win to a full touchdown victory. Someone alert Vegas.

Oakland 27, San Diego 24: The annual DVR Bowl.

But will there be enough space with all the saved episodes of The Newsroom and Veep???????

I’ve been on this site for over a year and just had to sign up to address Peter King’s lunacy. His point is somewhat warranted but if you google your flight number (ie: Delta 1902) it will tell you which Terminal your flight is leaving from. It takes literally 14 seconds.

I’m pretty sure that Jeff Fisher’s son, Brandon, works for the Rams too. He was on the Titans when his dad was there and then worked for the Lions while his dad had a year off. Of course, Fisher’s former D-Coordinator is the coach in Detroit so the nepotism was still there.

Great first sentence, that whole “ideological saddlebag” shennanigans he pulled really pissed me off. He makes up a phrase that he puts in a quote, then he attributes the phrase to himself and then he congratulates himself for the brilliance of the phrase. In my opinion, he isn’t using the word ideological properly. Ideology is by definition related to sociology, politics and planning on a very large scale.Fuck you very much, King.

The problem isn’t that he lampshaded it, IMO, because he does that all the time. It’s that his mixed metaphor makes NO FUCKING SENSE. A saddlebag is used for storing your supplies, gear, food, etc. Ideologies are philosophical approaches or worldviews used to define goals, formulate strategies, and evaluate outcomes.

In his metaphor, the ideology would dictate the use of a horse, and the supplies you stored in it for your journey. The saddlebags would store plays, formations, substitutions, techniques, practice plans, etc, that the coach would use in order to carryout his strategy in line with his ideology (ie, if you’re a “smashmouth” ideologue, then you’d pull the I-formation, HB Iso, and jumbo package out of your Peter King saddlebags.) You aren’t hiding bits of your coaching philosophy; you’re hiding your implements.

I appreciate the effort to break down how nonsensical Peter’s new phrase is, but it really is unnecessary. It’s all Peter does every week.
What I find strange is that he decided to use the nonsensical phrase to replace the quote that he received (or copied) from Sparano, which is the first time Sparano’s coach-speak jibberish has been made less intelligible…by a “journalist” no less.

‘Tactical Saddlebag’ would have worked as a turn of phrase, but even that would not be worth giving himself a handjob over, seeing as I say shit like that all the time when I am watching games, and I am usually well into my cups and not being paid 6 or 7 figures a year to come up with this crap.

Jeebus, I really hate Peter fucking King. There are some other sports reporters I dislike, but I just fucking resent that this semi-literate douchebag gets one of the best sports reporting gigs imaginable, and uses his football column to talk about baseball, coffee, airport infrastructure and beer, and has yet to figure that his word processing program has a feature that will number his bullet points in a coherent manner.

It’s the fact that he’s actually proud of this garbage that really galls me. “No sense upending the theosophical spittoon unless you need to” makes equal sense, and it has no meaning whatsoever. “No sense pouring out the cosmological wineskin unless you need to” would also apply.
ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER. DO YOU SPEAK IT?

I forget what show this was on, but in response to a question about what the NFL plans to do when the scab refs inevitably screw up, Ray Anderson assured the host last week that he expected them to perform adequately, so it really wasn’t an issue. It’s strange how executives running one of the purest meritocracies in the world can’t admit that scabs just might perform worse and that a contingency plan isn’t even worth talking about.

Laguardia is a dump and can be confusing. But you know that going there.King has lived in or around NYC for several decades; he should know this. Further, the highway entry to Laguardia does in fact have signage all over the place, specifically telling you which terminal has Delta departing and arriving flights. If you either a. look online before you get there or b. look up from your vente mocha half slim decaf cockachinno you will know quite easily what terminal you must go to for your flight or c.utliize your smart phone to verify what terminal your flight is utilizing.

Love that for all his fawning crap the Manning family treats King like the clown stalker he is.

I think PK bitches about traveling every week because he (erroneously) thinks it makes him seem like a “common man” who is connected to his audience. This is of course enraging enough that I want to have some sort of reverse Brewster’s Millions curse put upon his family and make him live–and travel–off of minimum wage for the rest of the NFL season.

I’ve never had a Delta flight out of terminal A, and I fly weekly as well, so I’m kinda tempted to call bullshit there. Either way, the shuttle between Terminal C and D is so easy that I DON’T EVEN BOTHER CHECKING THE TERMINAL BEFORE I GET THERE. Just go through security at D and hop on the bus if needed.

PK must be Platinum or Diamond, so it’s not like he even has to sit through pleb security at LGA (though, if there is a God, Peter King would NEVER get Pre-Check and would always be subjected to extra random screening while he slows down the line trying to figure out how to velcro his shoes without also losing his laptop on the conveyor belt.)

“For the first time in 27 years Hines Ward…”
For the first time in 27 years I’m not 13. WEIRD
Good evisceration Ape. Another season is under way. I was watching the evening game last night and every time Peter King came on, I couldn’t help but drift to KSK in my thoughts.

The reason the game at London sells out is that people have supported teams for 20-30 years and want to watch a game live, any game. The stands are full of fans of all NFL teams, from all over Europe. It is the novelty that pulls the fans in and the variety of teams gives everyone a chance to see their team play. The 80,000 fans there don’t just buy a jersey at random and turn up, or become a fan of one team for a day. Who the fuck would go once a year to watch Jacksonville get humped?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hasn’t Peter spent months endlessly droning on about how architect Andrew Luck is uber quasi-Manning-esque and how lucky Indy is to have him and that it’s just so obvious even before the season started that Luck WILL be Offensive Rookie of the Year?

See what happens when you have an opinion, Petey? Now don’t do it again.

Re PK’s 9: Apparentally Melbourne/Victoria/Australia was “offered” an NFL game, but wouldnt pay enough to actually have one. So Jacksonville cant sell out well,, any home game, and the MCG which would have 100,000 for the game wouldnt pay enough so the Mo could make his moeny back he thinks.